GoVideo Rave MP Sport review: GoVideo Rave MP Sport

Go Video's exercise-friendly Rave-MP Sport
For a flash-based audio player to compete against high-capacity hard drive players such as the Apple iPod Mini and Creative Zen Micro, it had better dish out a wealth of sexy features--and do it for an impulse-buy price. The GoVideo Rave-MP Sport AMP128 packs an FM tuner, a voice- and radio recorder, and even an expansion slot into its cute, little case, then goes the extra mile with an armband holster, exercise-friendly earbuds, and other goodies--all for $99.99.

As you may have guessed from its name, the AMP128 offers only 128MB of storage. For a mere $30 more, you can buy the AMP256 and double your storage space--or spend about the same money on a 256MB Secure Digital (SD) memory card, thereby tripling your available space. Either way, it's great to find an expansion slot in such an inexpensive player.

A tad larger than a Zippo lighter and sheathed in a deep, glossy red, the AMP128 manages to look simultaneously cool and cute. Controls consist of a five-way navigation/playback pad in front and volume, menu, Hold, and power buttons or switches on the side. Coupled with refreshingly simple onscreen menus, these intuitive controls make the AMP128 a breeze to operate. The SD slot resides in the same rear compartment as the single AAA battery.

We particularly liked the player's high-resolution screen, which uses a large font to highlight the song title and packs in a wealth of information: artist and album title, elapsed time, volume level, equalizer setting, a battery gauge, a progress bar, and so on. All of this appears onscreen at once--no annoying scrolling as with many other flash players.

The AMP128 can play MP3, WAV, and WMA files and is among the first players we've seen to support Microsoft's PlaysForSure initiative. Consequently, we had no trouble copying DRM-protected WMAs from Musicmatch Jukebox and Windows Media Player. The player includes Shuffle and Repeat modes and an equalizer with five presets and a five-band custom setting. We found audio quality to be better than expected and quite excellent overall. Our only complaint is that the maximum volume level isn't nearly loud enough to compete with certain kinds of ambient noise, like trains and planes.

The AMP128 doubles as an FM radio tuner and recorder, though with some limitations. While you can manually store as many as 20 presets, the player can't automatically create them by scanning the FM band. In addition, all radio recordings are stored in main memory--you can't record to the SD card--as 64Kbps WAV files. But those are minor complaints; the AMP128 demonstrated above-average signal reception, and its recording capabilities are just icing on the cake.

The unit can also record voice notes, though we found its built-in microphone to be fairly weak. Forget setting the AMP128 on a conference table during business meetings--you pretty much have to hold it near your mouth.

The AMP128's included armband holster and ear-clip headphones make it perfect for exercise. The 'phones are terrific; they keep the earbuds from falling out at inopportune times and save you from having to mash them into your ears so that they stay put. As a result, they're also a lot more comfortable than most earbuds.

GoVideo supplies no desktop software--file transfers are strictly a drag-and-drop affair. And a slow one affair that: while GoVideo touts the player's USB 2.0 interface, performance was closer to USB 1.1. It took more than three minutes to copy 100MB worth of MP3s to the player, for an average of 0.52MB per second. Fortunately, the AMP128 is also slow to drain its battery. In our tests, it managed to keep rocking for 17.4 hours--far longer than most players in this class.

The AMP128 exhibited some strange behavior. On several occasions, it locked up while we scrolled through album or track listings. Later, while scanning radio stations, it inexplicably turned itself off. Hopefully GoVideo will address these issues in a firmware update. Although these lockups are a concern, the AMP128 delivers a ton of bang for the buck. We'd recommend it to anyone seeking a versatile, exercise-oriented audio player with a double-digit price tag.